Well, I completely miscalculated my boil off and wound up 6 points shy of my inteded OG (1.047 instead of 1.053). It sucks because I was spot on pre-boil. I anticipated 1.5 gallons of boil off on a keggle, but only had a gallon. What is your boil off like? Looking to see if there is an average to better calculate the next batch.
Mon, Feb 18, 2013 - 8:08pm
#1
Boil Off Rates
I've never used a keggle, but on the big 15 gallon pots at the brewhouse, with a vigorous boil, I get just under 1.5 gallons/hour. On the 10 gallon pots, I figure a little bit more than 1 gallon/hour. Given how much narrower a keggle is than the 15 gallon pots at the brewhouse, I would guess that the boil off is closer to 1 than to 1.5.
And, look on the bright side: as long as you hit your pre-boil numbers, you just have a bit more of a more sessionable beer!
-Adam
Thanks for the reply. I think you're right on the your estimate. Nothing wrong with it being a sessionable beer, I just wish I could hit my numbers once. Frustrating.
My most recent brew was an 8g boil for 60 minutes and we ended up with 7g post boil to ferment 6.5g. This was on the 10g pot with the volume markings & blue handle (there are two that are identical in the BH). The big thing I've noticed is how high you have the Blichman's turned up. I've done a slow boil and burned off 1g or a vigorous boil and boiled off over 1.5g
That's true, Evan. I've had some crazy-strong boils on one of the blichmann burners where I ended up having to top up the kettle a little bit because I boiled too strongly. So I guess my numbers above would reflect an "average" boil; vigorous, but not crazy.
Am I correct in thinking that it's better to boil off too much and have to top off than not boil off enough?
If you want to hit your numbers, it probably is better to boil off a bit too much, since you can always add water to your kettle/fermenter, but you can't extract water from a batch that you didn't boil down enough.
I use the 15 gallon pots and end up a gallon short after my boils... So I.5 gallon boil off on the big pots, check.
I have a keggle...and I get about 1 gallon per hour of boil-off..but sometimes i get surprised...i often wonder if humidity plays a role...being dryer the boiling wort evaps faster...But I agree with adam..better to add water...or else you have to boil longer and your aroma hops turn into bittering hops...or you can add extract to bump it up in the end...but really...adding water is the easiest...